The present invention relates generally to light beam transmission systems and specifically to a laser collimating technique for controlling the wavefront of a transmitted laser beam so that it forms the conjugate, on a subaperture basis, of an incoming beam.
Optical systems frequently require precise alignment of the light beams being transmitted relative to optical elements and fixed reference members. This is especially true of laser systems. It is also often necessary to continuously monitor and dynamically align such beams.
The task of providing dynamic alignment for communication lasers is alleviated, to some extent, by the following U.S. Patents, which are incorporated herein by reference:
U.S. Pat. No. 3,316,800 issued to L. Kibler on May 2, 1967; PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 3,942,894 issued to D. Maier on Mar. 9, 1976; and PA0 U.S. Pat. No. 4,155,096 issued to Thomas et al on May 15, 1979.
All of the above references disclose alignment systems for laser beams. While tilt control boresighting systems are effective in aligning and collimating laser beams, they are generally insensitive to subaperture tilt errors and shared aperture component distortions. A need remains to correct such errors on a subaperture basis. The present invention is directed towards satisfying that need.